Multicast Addresses for Documentation
RFC 6676

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Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)                         S. Venaas
Request for Comments: 6676                                     R. Parekh
Category: Informational                                  G. Van de Velde
ISSN: 2070-1721                                            Cisco Systems
                                                                T. Chown
                                               University of Southampton
                                                              M. Eubanks
                                                 Iformata Communications
                                                             August 2012

                 Multicast Addresses for Documentation

Abstract

   This document discusses which multicast addresses should be used for
   documentation purposes and reserves multicast addresses for such use.
   Some multicast addresses are derived from AS numbers or unicast
   addresses.  This document also explains how these can be used for
   documentation purposes.

Status of This Memo

   This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is
   published for informational purposes.

   This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
   (IETF).  It represents the consensus of the IETF community.  It has
   received public review and has been approved for publication by the
   Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG).  Not all documents
   approved by the IESG are a candidate for any level of Internet
   Standard; see Section 2 of RFC 5741.

   Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
   and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
   http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6676.

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RFC 6676          Multicast Addresses for Documentation      August 2012

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2012 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
   (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
   publication of this document.  Please review these documents
   carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
   to this document.  Code Components extracted from this document must
   include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1. Introduction ....................................................2
   2. IPv4 Multicast Documentation Addresses ..........................3
      2.1. Administratively Scoped IPv4 Multicast Addresses ...........3
      2.2. GLOP Multicast Addresses ...................................3
      2.3. Unicast Prefix-Based IPv4 Multicast Addresses ..............4
   3. IPv6 Multicast Documentation Addresses ..........................4
      3.1. Unicast Prefix-Based IPv6 Multicast Addresses ..............5
      3.2. Embedded-RP IPv6 Multicast Addresses .......................5
   4. Security Considerations .........................................5
   5. IANA Considerations .............................................5
   6. Acknowledgments .................................................6
   7. Informative References ..........................................6

1.  Introduction

   It is often useful in documentation, IETF documents, etc., to provide
   examples containing IP multicast addresses.  For documentation where
   examples of general purpose multicast addresses are needed, one
   should use multicast addresses that will never be assigned or in
   actual use.  There is a risk that addresses used in examples may
   accidentally be used.  It is then important that the same addresses
   not be used by other multicast applications or services.  It may also
   be beneficial to filter out such addresses from multicast signalling
   and to filter out multicast data sent to such addresses.

   For unicast, there are both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses reserved for this
   purpose; see [RFC5737] and [RFC3849], respectively.  This document
   reserves multicast addresses for this same purpose.

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RFC 6676          Multicast Addresses for Documentation      August 2012

   There are also some multicast addresses that are derived from AS
   numbers or unicast addresses.  For examples where such addresses are
   desired, one should derive them from the AS numbers and unicast
   addresses reserved for documentation purposes.  This document also
   discusses the use of these.

2.  IPv4 Multicast Documentation Addresses

   For Any-Source Multicast (ASM), the IPv4 multicast addresses
   allocated for documentation purposes are 233.252.0.0 - 233.252.0.255
   (233.252.0.0/24).

   For Source-Specific Multicast (SSM), it is less important which